Three Important Roofing Tips for New Homeowners

By
Divine Roofing
|August 22, 2017

Are you looking to purchase your first home or have you recently taken
the plunge and bought a house? As a first-time home buyer, you’ve
just inherited a number of responsibilities, notably maintaining your
home to protect the huge investment you just put forth. In addition to
keeping up with the landscaping replacing burned-out lightbulbs, and other
simple maintenance tasks, you also need to protect and maintain the roof
over your head so it can function optimally for years to come. If you’re
not sure how to do this, here are some valuable tips that will help you
become a better and more prepared homeowner for the future.

Get To Know Your Roofing System

If you want to effectively maintain your roof, you need to know what it’s
made of. How are the various pieces, materials, and components put together?
What is their function? Knowing these things can help you identify issues
quicker if they arise, and can let you know if you need to schedule a
repair as soon as possible. Here are some of the parts of your roofing system:

Outer layer: This is the part of your roof you see when looking at your home from the
outside. This layer consists of the shingles or tiles on your roof, and
is the first level of protection your roof has against the elements. It
also plays a huge role in your home’s curb appeal.

Decking: This is the plywood foundation that the shingles or tiles are fastened
to in order to create your roof.

Timber: This is the wooden structure that composes the frame of your roof, including
the joists, rafters, crossbeams, and more.

Eaves: These are the parts of your roof that overhang beyond the edges of your
exterior walls.

Fascia: These are the boards which are attached to the edges of the eaves on your
home, giving them a nice, clean appearance.

Gutters: These are small metal or plastic troughs attached to the fascia which
collect water that rolls off your roof and carries it away from the foundation
of your home. They require regular cleaning.

Ice Dams

If you’ve grown up in the icy winters of Colorado, you likely know
what an ice dam is and why it can be such a huge threat and burden on
homeowners. If you’re just moving to the area, particularly from
a warmer climate, you may not be aware of this threat. In both cases,
you need to know how to take care of this problem before it causes tremendous
damage to your home.

An ice dam is a giant block of ice that forms usually toward the edges
of your roof (near the eaves) as a result of snow and ice melting further
up (where the roof is warmer) and re-freezing again at a lower, colder
point. Ice dams can penetrate and lift roofing materials, exposing the
soft, vulnerable underlayment beneath, creating leaks, causing mold, and
weakening the entire structure of your roof, which means your home is
at serious risk for major damage. They can also slide and become dislodged
from the roof above, which means there’s a tremendous risk of the
dam falling and injuring someone or damaging property.

Preventing ice dams doesn’t have to be difficult. While some people
choose to use salt or some other form of a snow-melting material on their
roof to try to curtail the issue, you might find that the most reliable
method is to make sure your attic is well-insulated and ventilated to
allow for an even temperature. This means the snow and ice will either
melt uniformly or remain frozen, preventing it from flowing and freezing
into a solid block. Preventing warm air from getting into your attic through
proper insulation is the most consistent way to avoid this problem.

Roof Inspections

Just because the roof over your head is fine now doesn’t mean it
will stay that way. Over time, the continual exposure to the elements
will wear on anything left outside, and your roof is no exception. This
means you should have your roof inspected fairly regularly—every
few years if it’s new, increasing to every year as it ages and starts
to develop more issues. An inspection can help you identify and repair
problems before they become major issues, which can prolong the life of
your roof for many additional years.

Need a roof repair or inspection? Trust the GAF Master Elite® professionals
at Divine Roofing, Inc. to get the job done right!
Call us today at (719) 497-1005 to schedule a service or receive an estimate.